I've had this idea for a while now, and I finally decided to write it. It's basically a retold episode of an old TV programme called 'Randall and Hopkirk (deceased)' about a pair of private eyes. One or two implied pairings, but nothing solid.

Dick Gumshoe: Ace Detective

Turnabout prologue

Miles Edgeworth was in a contemptible and bitter mood. Of course, he seemed that way most of the time, being a prosecutor with a fearsome reputation and a sharp face that always seemed to be either smirking or sneering, but his current temperament was more genuine this time. That tended to be the case when one was in hospital.

It had been his damn fear of earthquakes that had done it. He should never have come back from studying law abroad. About two days ago an earth tremor had struck just as Miles Edgeworth reached the top of an escalator. Naturally, fate decided that he should faint as he was occasionally prone to doing when caught in an earthquake, and he'd toppled backwards down the metal steps. Telling him he was lucky not to have been killed hadn't cheered him up in the slightest. He'd broken a leg, dislocated his arm, cracked his skull (which of course meant he had to have his head shaved before it could be operated on) and lost one of his front teeth. He was scheduled to remain in hospital for more than two weeks. He couldn't read anything to pass the time because he had double vision as a result of the accident, and he wasn't going to turn on the radio. If he heard 'Ocean Drive' one more time he swore he'd kill somebody. He'd already reduced a nurse to tears over that.

To sum it up, Miles was bored. Worse than bored, he was lonely, though he hated to admit it. Anyone who had cause to visit him was always too busy with their work, and he wasn't in a ward with anyone else, but in a private room (Miles Edgeworth naturally went private).

As if in answer to his dark thoughts, someone knocked gently on the door of his white walled prison.

"Come," he called like an impatient school principal. The door creaked open, and a frightened looking nurse poked her head round the door. He glared solidly at her, wondering if she'd come to change the flowers.

"Excuse me sir," she mumbled just below a volume that was comfortable to hear at. "You have some visitors."

Miles Edgeworth raised a well-trimmed eyebrow at the nurse. That elevated eyebrow had thrown doubt into the hearts of some of the most steadfast solicitors in the world; it was quite unfair to bring it to bear on an innocent bystander, but Miles found it hard to imagine who would have come to visit him.

"And these supposed visitors are…?" he asked.

"Hey! Enough with the boring intros. We're his friends!" a familiar voice said from somewhere behind the door. Miles' narrowed eyes widened a fraction. Surely it couldn't be-

That's when Maya Fey bounded into the room, looking little different from the last time he'd seen her, her long raven black hair pulled up in a topknot, white and purple kimono draped around her with an elegance her personality lacked, and her open face and wide eyes shining as always with hyperactive enthusiasm at the slightest of stimuli (God help the man destined to be her husband).

A second person entered the room, with far slower and deliberate steps, an aloof little smile on his face. Phoenix Wright- Nick to everyone who knew him. Miles felt a slight discomfort come over him, and not from being caught in his maroon pyjamas by Maya ("Hey! Are all your clothes the same colour?").

The last Miles had heard of Nick, he'd had his attorney's badge taken away from him for presenting false evidence during a trial. Nick had clearly fallen on some hard times, his sky blue suit replaced with a grey hoodie and some old black jeans. Still, it was good to see him again after he seemingly cast himself into exile and vanished for so long.

"Long time no see, Miles," he said calmly. "Heard you took quite a tumble."

"You heard correctly," Miles replied in a bone dry tone. Nick grunted a laugh and moved to stand next to his old friend, towing Maya away from a photo of Vincent Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' that had been mounted on the wall in a cheap frame like a painting ("That's a lousy painting! You should have seen the one Larry did!").

"We got you a present," the tall and lanky ex-attorney gestured to his far shorter female companion.

"Huh? Oh yeah! Sorry about what happened to you Mister Edgeworth," Maya quickly rummaged through a large paper bag that had been swinging like a pendulum from her arm. She pulled out a much smaller paper bag, from which in turn she produced a clear plastic bag full of grapes. She handed them over, beaming all the while.

"Ah grapes," Edgeworth's demeanour brightened instantly. "Thank you Ms Fey."

The hospitalised attorney plucked one bright green fruits from the bag and popped it in his mouth. On the first bite his eyes widened and his expresion soured.

"Well," Maya rested her head on her hand and looked up thoughtfully "I couldn't actually find any grapes, so I decided to do the next best thing and shaved gooseberries."

Edgeworth desperately choked the hald eaten gooseberry out, at the same time trying to growl furiously at spirit medium. Apparently oblivious to all this, Maya continued smiling.

"You're lucky. If I hadn't come to town to buy and new pair of nail scissors as well those things would still be all furry," she said. "But don't worry; no need to thank me Mister Edgeworth. I'm just glad I had something to bring you, since some people didn't bother," Maya rounded on Nick. "Mister Edgeworth's probably really miserable because he got no other presents and you could have made the difference. Don't you know what it's like to be ill? There was one time when I was six and this girl called-"

"Actually, he has got something else," Nick pointed out, plucking another piece of fruit from the bedside table.

An apple. A single red apple, with a small note attached with a piece of string. Maya stared dumbly at the orb for a moment.

"Well that's a horrible present. Who got you that Mr Edgeworth?"

"My 'side kick'. Who'd you think?"

Conversation went on from there, all of it pretty pointless and Miles doing his best to stay out of most of it, though engaging Nick on a few points was far preferable to responding to Maya questioning him about if he'd seen the latest episodes of 'Steel Samurai', because he simply had no interest in that kids cartoon whatsoever (though he made a mental note of the recent episode he'd missed).

Despite the absurdity of some of the subjects that began to crop, Edgeworth was secretly pleased to see his sort-of friends again. He regarded the pair with searching eyes. Apart from the fact that they were both wearing sandals (Why!) they were so remarkably different. Wright was a tall man, not tanned but with a skin tone darker than the average caucasian, his madly spiky hair revealed now that he'd taken off that absurd woolly hat. Fey was short and slight, skin the colour of pasteurised milk, and covered liberally with accessories such as her necklace mounted magatama and leather bracelet. Combine that with their opposing personalities, and they were the paragon of opposites attract; not that he was certain that those two were an item no matter how hard he applied his mind to the question. But there had to be something between them. No man would run across a burning rope bridge hanging precariously over a canyon just to rescue a casual acquaintance. It was sorely tempting to say something blunt about their relationship to see how they'd react, but Miles Edgeworth had an image to uphold, so he suppressed any desire to joke with them.

They talked a little more on various topics, the easy interaction between Nick and Maya and Edgeworth's occasional comments not stopping until there was a knock at the door about five or ten minutes later.

Without waiting for an invitation, the door swung open, and a burly figure whose height put even Nick's to shame stepped in. A rough looking, black haired man had entered, a look of bewilderment on his stubbly face. Even with double vision, Miles couldn't mistake that gormless look and trademark moss green trench coat.

'Oh no- not him again,' Miles thought in regard to the only man who'd visited him before now; his annoyingly inept partner and the bearer of the gifted apple.

"Hey pal!" Detective Dick Gumshoe's foghorn voice bellowed. "Good to see you again! You feelin' okay?"

"All the better for seeing you," droned the hospitalised attorney.

'Like gum on my shoe- can't get rid of him.'

"Oh, hi Detective Dick," Maya clapped her hands in front of her chest and bowed her head sharply in the traditional welcome of her people. "Thanks again for giving us a lift here."

Miles frowned. "You brought them here, Gumshoe?"

"Yeah, pal. Nicky boy still hasn't learnt to drive, so I got them here to see you!"

"Then where have you been for the last ten minutes?"

Gumshoe started at the question, then shrugged and said "I was just parkin' the car after I dropped these guys off at the door."

Before anyone could say anything, Maya seemed to suddenly realise something.

"Oh, wait a moment," she exclaimed in surprise, before throwing out her arm dramatically, pointing a powerfully accusing finger at the Detective and screaming at the top of her lungs.

"HOLD IT!"

"Yikes! Jeez, what's wrong pal!" Gumshoe staggered back a step from Maya's defence attorney act.

"The car park was right next to the entrance. When we got out of your car there were lots of spaces in that car park. You said you'd be right behind us, yet you arrive ten minutes later," Maya reasoned, before flourishing her arm again and shouting "HOW DO YOU ACCOUNT FOR THE LOST TIME, DETECTIVE!"

"Gimme a break, pal. We're not in court now."

In response, Maya brought down a fist heavily and screamed "OBJECTION!" in a disturbingly accurate impersonation of Nick.

Miles howled as Maya's truth seeking fist came into contact with the cast of his broken leg.

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A few nurses and painkillers later, plus an apology delivered from Maya smiling one her cutest head-turned-side-on smiles ever, Nick posed the question to Gumshoe again.

"So, why were you so long getting here Gumshoe?"

"Uh, well," the detective bowed his head in embarrassment, wondering if there was any point trying to conceal the truth from the magatama wielding duo, before he gave in.

"I got lost on the way here."

"Got lost!" Edgeworth spat, scratching at the bandage round his head. "You were only here a few days ago."

"All the corridors look the same to me; I went to the wrong place. I had to use all my deductive abilities just to get back to the way in."

"Where did you go?" Nick asked.

Gumshoe shrugged and said "Not sure, but I knew it wasn't Mister Edgeworth's room because someone was talkin' about pregnancy."

Maya snorted loudly, while Nick turned his face away and chuckled gently. Gumshoe was a second away from retaliating, before Miles beat him to it.

"That wasn't very good detective work, detective. Why shouldn't Nick and Maya be discussing their plans for the future?"

Maya let a small shriek of surprise, while Nick's head snapped towards his friend so fast that there was a cracking noise, shortly followed by a look of pain washing over his face. Gumshoe nearly laughed at the sight, till he remembered he'd been criticised as well.

"Tell me Gumshoe, how did you ever get promoted to detective?" asked Miles. "Was it like, 'collect five pot noodle tokens and become a detective'?"

"Hey!" the police officer growled in defence. "Don't say that, pal! I had to work hard to get where I am!"

"No offence Detective Gumshoe, but you don't seem like you're very good at your job," Maya hesitantly pointed out, before looking thoughtful.

"I wonder what I'd be like if I were a detective. I bet the paper work would be twice as boring, but I'd be great in a high speed chase. I heard on TV once that if you don't know about driving its better because you act on instinct and don't misinterpret signals. I've never tried driving though," she eyed the detective suddenly, and beamed a great smile. "Hey, Mister Dick sir. Do you think-"

"You're not touchin' my car!" Gumshoe stated firmly, then quickly changed the subject as Maya pouted and visibly began building a retort.

"Alright, so I'm not the best of detectives, but I've proved I'm practically indispensible to law enforcement in this town."

"Really?" asked Edgeworth. "And how did you accomplish this… miracle?"

"How, you say? Didn't you know that I was the one behind the Moonwalker case thirteen years ago?"

Gumshoe's gusto remained intact, despite the lack of acknowledgement to the secret he'd just revealed.

"The what case?" someone eventually said.

"Oh yeah. You wouldn't know about that would you?" Gumshoe grinned sheepishly. "Well, I don't suppose it would matter if I told you guys. You wanna hear about it?"

"No, not really," Miles drawled tiredly, the morphine he'd been given taking affect.

"Why was it called the Moonwalker case?" asked Maya. The dreamy look on her face made it clear what she was thinking. Gumshoe quickly corrected her before she suggested something insane.

"I didn't travel into space or nuthin'," Maya's face fell as Gumshoe spoke "but I had a run in with spies sent by the mob."

"Spies!" Maya brightened up immediately. "You mean like 'James Bond' spies? Did you have to fight them? Was there a conspiracy? Or aliens? Come on Gumshoe, you've got to tell us now!"

Dick Gumshoe grinned as Maya raised her fists and puffed up her cheeks in her usual way when she was really determined about something.

"You really wanna hear about it? Well that's just fine with me, pals!" Gumshoe rubbed his hands together in glee. He took off his large coat and hung it on the hook on the back of the door, before grabbing a nearby chair and turning it so he could sit backwards on it.

"Okay, get ready." he said in his most ominous voice. "This story is top secret. It's a story of adventure, mystery, and some seriously mega fisticuffs."

"Well come on then; tell us!" Maya was practically jumping up and down at this point.

"Okay, so it was like this…"

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I got talking to this old timer in a bar. He was a little cagey at first, but after a few shots of JD (me paying of course) he was singing like a bird.

It all seemed like just talk at the time, but little did I know that at that moment the weed of crime was tightening its grip upon the city.

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"Oh, wait a second pal," Gumshoe's enthusiasm dissolved. "That's the movie I was watchin' last night."

"Wake me up when he's finished," groaned Edgeworth.